Exercise causality orientations, behavioural regulation for exercise and stage of change for exercise: exploring their relationships

Objectives: The objectives are to (a) explore the relationship between exercise causality orientations and stages of change and in doing so highlight any motivational changes that accompany movement through the stages, and (b) investigate the relative importance of exercise causality orientations and behavioural regulations in discriminating stage of change. Methods: One hundred and one female (MageZ28.85G11.21) and 83 male (MageZ33.99G13.86) volunteers completed the Stage of Change for Exercise Ladder, the Exercise Causality Orientations Scale (ECOS) and the Behavioural Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire (BREQ). Results: For both males and females, levels of the autonomy orientation increased across the stages of change while levels of the control orientation remained stable. Taking the ECOS and BREQ in combination, only identified and introjected regulation distinguished stage of change. Less self-determined regulations decreased as exercise participation increased but intrinsic regulation was not increased by longer participation in exercise. Conclusions: The autonomy orientation and more self-determined extrinsic motivation were related to later stages of change for exercise but the nature of this study precludes the ability to make causal inferences. The BREQ subscales seem to be more important for discriminating stage of change than the ECOS subscales, however, the causal relationship between the development of causality orientations and behavioural regulations is not yet known. q 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.